BibleWiki talk:Community Portal

From BibleWiki

I'm gonna go ahead and updated the community portal with the latest version of the development page. --Ymmotrojam 20:09, 19 March 2006 (GMT)

Bible passage format

It seems like it would be most useful if the primary method of reading the Bible from here would be by chapter, have a navigational box for each chapter in a book, and if a passage or verse is particularly important, it should have its own article page. But any verse that isn't especially important should not have its own page, in my opinion. It doesn't make sense to do so. One critical reason for this is that verses do not stand by themselves. They need context to surround them. You might argue that chapters do not stand alone either, but it would simply be infeasable to arrange it any other way. Schmidt 01:40, 22 April 2006 (BST)

Even aside from any wider discussion of themes, every verse will have its own issues regarding textual variants, translation, etc. If you pick up any good critical commentary you'll see that they can easily spend several pages on even the shortest of verses! I do agree however, that there will need to be pages which bring together discussion on wider issues than are contained in a single verse, but that don't fit the traditional "dictionary" approach. I don't think there's any way to identify what these are other than to create them as we go. So feel free to start creating these! Note also that each chapter does have its own page, and most should have a basic navigational box - we're still filling these in for chapters that don't have these yet, and at some stage I plan to automate the creation of these "Chapter at a Glance" pages for the other translations (we only have them for KJV at the minute). --TonyBowden 22:20, 22 April 2006 (BST)

Perhaps because verses are contextual, we whould be considering putting several verses together into a section of some description, and then writing our discussion about that sector. A lot like how The Message Bible has the verses in chunks of 1-10 verses, which you are meant to read together. Josher 06:03, 27 April 2006 (BST)

Absolutely. Atomizing all commentary into verses, is far too restrictive. The best recent commentaries include extensive treatment of larger units. We need to be able to (frequently, spontaneously) be able to write on passages, and sections of any arbitrary length. (Luke's infancy narrative [Lk 1:5-2:53]; Sermon on the Mount [Mt 5-7]; The Rich Man and Lazerus [Lk 16:19-31], Luke-Acts, whatever] Scot 11:33, 27 March 2007 (BST)

Security

I found myself just thinking about security and thought that perhaps you should put all verse comentries on their own pages, with the verses linking to them, and then lock all of the verses, to prevent people accidently or pourposly altering our electronic Bible. Josher 06:37, 27 April 2006 (BST)

The verses and commentary are already on distinct pages. However, we want people to be able to edit the verses, mostly to add relevant links etc. All changes appear in the Recent Changes list so we should be able to see, and fix, vandalism easily and quickly enough. --TonyBowden 09:52, 27 April 2006 (BST)

As the wiki grows, this will become much more difficult to monitor using the Recent Changes. Josher's idea may be a good one: protecting the pages that shouldn't be edited. I agree with the "everyone can edit" approach (and have stuck with it @ Wookieepedia, as difficult as it is sometimes), but the Bible passages should not be editable, assuming they have been pulled in correctly. And if there is some error where it has not been pulled in correctly, all sysops still have authority to change it. WhiteBoy 02:37, 28 April 2006 (BST)

The main thing that needs to be changed with the Bible verses isn't the text, which is, barring input errors, complete for the versions we have, but to make words and phrases into the relevant wiki links. This isn't something that's going to be finished any time soon. Vandalism isn't a problem yet, so I'm happy enough to just wait to see if it becomes one before going down this path. --Tmtm 06:22, 28 April 2006 (BST)

Locking the verse pages is the idea that has been adopted at Wikible. It might be helpful to only lock them so unregistered users cannot edit them. I know anonymous users cannot edit at this time, but maybe that would help in the future if they will ever be able to. So it's still protected somewhat.... --Ymmotrojam 12:31, 28 April 2006 (BST)

Why dont you just lock the /kjv the /douay and all the other / versions of the text, but not the singular verses themselves (ex: unlocked, locked) If there are any errors, they could be listed in a Verse Errors page perhaps.

What's appropriate here?

I have done some Bible studies on a few different issues that I have been faced with. My typical approach when I am searching for the truth on a doctrinal issue is that I start a collection of verses that pertain to the subject. As I read, if I run across a verse that is relevant, I write it down in my little notebook. These collections of passages may be useful to others, and I would probably post them if that kind of content is appropriate to the site. WhiteBoy 02:42, 28 April 2006 (BST)

Do you have an example? --Tmtm 06:23, 28 April 2006 (BST)

• If you are asking for an example of one of the topics I've collected verses for, I will try to post something tonight. If you are asking for an example of what I'm asking... I guess what I'm asking is: is this wiki an academic effort (archaeology, geography, history, etc.) or is it a spiritual effort (doctrines, etc.)? For example, "Jesus was born in Bethlehem, lived from 4 BC to AD 29" versus "Jesus was the Christ. He was the one and only Son of God and lived a perfectly sinless life." My hope is that it is both. WhiteBoy 20:21, 29 April 2006 (BST)

It's academic. WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:V etc. Which, of course, means that neither of your examples would really fit! However, this doesn't mean that we can't have verses about various doctrines, as long as they are along the lines of "A, B, and C believe X; however D, E, and F believe Y", state the positions fairly, and it doesn't turn into a huge argument. There are plenty of other forums for that! --Tmtm 07:32, 30 April 2006 (BST)

• Gotcha...thanks. But why wouldn't the first example fit (assuming the dates I made up were accurate)? WhiteBoy 20:57, 30 April 2006 (BST)

Perhaps we could have sections of the wiki that are declared subjective. We could have a template template:subjective that would display a notice at the top of the page stating that the page is of a subjective nature, the opinion(s) of the writer(s). That of course assumes that the writers share a relativly common point of view. Josher 00:33, 1 May 2006 (BST)